KARACHI: The Supreme Court-mandated commission on water and sanitation in Sindh on Monday expressed serious reservations over the provincial authorities’ decision to empower the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) to regulate town planning.

The commission, headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice Amir Hani Muslim, summoned the chief secretary for Dec 13 directing him to come up with the decision of the government regarding conversion of industrial plots into commercial ones across the province.

It asked the chief secretary to inform the commission about the stance of the provincial government on the amendments empowering the SBCA for regulating town planning as well as some other issues which remained unattended by the provincial authorities for the last several months.

Summons the Sindh chief secretary for Dec 13 over conversion of industrial plots

The commission regretted that it was unfortunate that the SBCA was assigned to execute the job of town planning. It observed that the SBCA was the body required to regulate buildings’ construction.

The commission said that the task of town planning could not be assigned to the SBCA through amendments in the law.

It said that prima facie these were person-specific amendments that multiplied the miseries of the common man.

The commission observed that the Sindh Industrial Trading Estate (SITE) and SBCA had allowed conversions of industrial plots into commercial ones, but the issue was lingering on for the last two to three months as the provincial government had yet to take a decision in this regard.

It’s almost next to impossible to fix responsibility, but there were exceptions where innocent people mistakenly purchased the plots and raised construction whereas the departments concerned failed to anticipate the consequences which were to follow after allowing residential and commercial multistorey buildings, but there was no accountability of the officers concerned who had been responsible for making such ill-conceived plans, it added.

The commission further said that under these circumstances, the chief secretary was directed to appear before it with the government decision on these issues, which were of utmost public importance and would continue to multiply the problems of the public if not resolved.

“Hyderabad, Sukkur, Nawab­shah and Larkana do not have master plans resulting in mushroom and haphazard growth of these cities. The commission is told that Hyderabad has a master plan which is not approved by the Sindh government and steps have been taken by the SBCA to get it approved in the view of the amendments brought in by the Sindh Assembly empowering the SBCA to regulate the town planning also,” it added.

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2018